1995 Global Cultural Diversity Conference Proceedings, Sydney
Europe, Emigration and Economics
Mr Tara Mukherjee
President, European Union Migrants Forum, Belgium
The title of my talk to you is "Europe, emigration, and economics", and broadly I hope to illustrate to you today that the migrants in Europe not only earn their keep, but contribute handsomely to the economic success of the region.
I also plan to show how government legislation could substantially increase this contribution, and increase social stability at the same time. However, first of all I would like to introduce the European Union Migrants Forum, and tell you what it is, why it exits, and what it wants.
There are some 10 million non-Community migrants legally resident in the European Union. To these we may add three million more whose origins are outside the Union, but who have citizenship of one of the Member States by birth, marriage or naturalisation.
Now these 13 million people number more than the population of either Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, or Portugal, and indeed more that three Member States put together, that is Ireland, Luxembourg, and Denmark. That figure even approaches the population of the continent of Australia, so you can see that it behoves us to look after the population of what amounts to a 16th medium-sized Member State, already resident within the Union.
The European Parliament, perceiving that the migrants were in general overlooked, underprivileged and mostly politically invisible, decided to remedy this democratic deficit, at least in part, and provide migrants with a political voice on the European stage, by setting aside funds for the creation of the Migrants Forum.
The European Commission then implemented this decision by inviting migrant organisations to come together and set up the Forum, providing the necessary funding and initial logistic support. However, although we are funded by these Union bodies, we are totally politically independent, and write our own political agenda.
We are made up of so many Turks, so many Asians, so many North Africans, Black Africans, Caribbeans, South Americans, East Europeans, and those without a State, plus European Union migrants as associate members, to provide a representative spread of all origins and countries of residence.
What we want is recognition, equal opportunity, no discrimination, and a say in our own affairs. For we have quickly seen that, either we take hold of policy, or the politicians will take hold of us!
Now lets have a look at who are our members. Your typical migrant is a punchy sort of character, willing to uproot himself, overcome difficulties of language, culture, and habit, and go to set up in an entirely new environment, separated from family and friends and all that is familiar, doing an often unpleasant, low-paid, and unhealthy if not downright dangerous job, to pull himself up by the bootstraps to create a better life for himself, his family, and those around him.
Alternatively he may originally have been a refugee, subject to murderous persecution at home, and additionally despairing of having to leave his family behind, unprotected and at risk of reprisal for his flight.
Additional to all these difficulties he or she may have been faced with, there is often racial discrimination and harassment to contend with in the country he lives in, and with racist murders in double figures in some supposedly civilised countries recently, there is evidently a long way to go.
And yet, and yet, despite all these disadvantages, the migrants eventually make it, start to function economically, earn enough to pay tax as well as social security, and generally take their place in society. Mahatma Gandhi once said that "one who does not give back in equal terms what he gets from society is a thief".
However, migrants are essentially perceived by the public as a problem and, at best, an opportunity to provide paternalistic assistance to the unfortunate, and not as an opportunity for the receiving countries.
The peoples of Europe are largely ignorant of our civilisations and history, ignorant of our cultures and beliefs, above all they are ignorant of the contribution that the Migrant Communities are making to the European economic life. As an example, there are just over a million and a quarter Asians in Britain, about two and a half per cent of the population.
Unlike the Africans and the Caribbeans who revitalised and made outstanding contributions to such areas as sports and popular music, the great Asian contribution like the great Jewish contribution is concentrated in the professions, trade and commerce. Asians provide nearly a quarter of the doctors in the UK National Health Service, and nearly a fifth of British General Practitioners. They also provide nearly six per cent of British accountants and just under fifty per cent of British retail traders, (all working 25 hours a day and eight days a week). The contribution of the Turkish community to the German economy is likewise enormous.
When converted in crude financial terms, if you take into account all the contributions made by the Africans, the Caribbeans, the Moroccans, the Turks, the Asians and all the other migrant communities, one would find that net transfer of resources from the poor Third World to the First far exceeds the reverse flow of what is euphemistically called foreign aid.
Just about everywhere in Europe the transport, laundry, hotel and catering sectors would fall to pieces without migrant labour.
'Migrant Labour,' Did I Say?
Well, here is the crux of the whole problem, for the imported "labour" turned out to be people, indeed people very much like everybody else, who just want to be treated like everybody else, love their wives and families, with freedom to come and go and say their piece, and who knows, even have a little respect from the neighbours.
Now respect is something you have to earn, and I think I have said enough to illustrate that in general migrants, by their industry and sweat, have earned, if they have not been given, an economically respected place in European society.
But you would not believe the hassle they have in trying to love their wives and families, go and come and say their piece, and be treated like everybody else.
To start with, living in families together is an inalienable basic human right. No official can award that right, or dispute it, or delay it, it is a right, proper to everyone on this earth.
Why then you may ask yourselves, is there a queue four years long of families waiting in India to join the legally resident migrant in the U.K? Why has this right recently become shaky in France? How is it that the European authorities have recently brought their legislation on family reunification down to the lowest common denominator instead of upping it to the humane best?
Now let's have a look at the freedom to come and go and say one's piece. There is a long history of difficulties set up by governments to obstruct this. "Let my people go" said Jehovah to the Egyptian authorities about 3000 years ago, but it took a plague of boils and locusts to obtain an exit visa for the Israelites, and even then the authorities tried to rescind it at the last minute, with ultimately disastrous results from the emigration officers in the Red Sea.
To be fair to the Egyptian authorities, they learned a thing or two in the next thousand years, so when a certain refugee family fleeing a massacre in Israel arrived in Egypt, it was a good thing for the Christian religion that Jesus, Joseph, and Mary were allowed entry and exit without too many formalities.
The vision of the Prophet Mohammed came to him when he was in forced exile. It is well for Islam that the authorities in Mecca finally let him back in indeed in triumph.
Coming up to date in Europe, you might think that, with the wholly laudable free movement of persons in the European Union and European Economic Area, that the authorities would have got their act together on their legally resident migrants and refugees also. But not a bit of it.
Although a migrant may physically step across a lot of boundaries without let or hindrance, he thereby renders himself illegal, and liable to summary arrest by the police. And if you count up the number of migrants who have been done to death in police custody in France, then you will realise that this is not something to be lightly undertaken.
Now about saying your piece. Freedom of speech is one of the virtues that democracies pride themselves on, and one of the entry criteria for Member States of the European Union is the democratic nature of the state institutions.
This has enabled membership for three countries, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, which have relatively recently emerged from dictatorship into the light.
Freedom of speech, and of assembly, is all very well if it is not just used as an alibi for inaction, a sort of rubber wall to bounce back protest. But for freedom of speech to mean anything it's got to be given teeth, and by this I mean the right to vote, and the right of eligibility.
In the U.K. I am glad to say there are Members of Parliament of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin, and white MPs listen to their black constituents. But whoever heard of a Turkish MP in Germany, and an Arab MP in France? They have not even got the vote, never mind being eligible, so in fact large swathes of the legally-resident population, numbered in millions, are effectually disenfranchised.
Further, under the latest racist laws in France, legally-resident migrants no longer dare take part in demonstrations for fear of being photographed by the police, picked up, and deported for spurious reasons, as recently happened in Lyon.
Now let's have a look at the normal desire to be treated just the same as everybody else. We shall take the example of a young couple from an ethnic minority, who have a European nationality by birth or naturalisation, and who want to get married. This is the time that the family gets together, so the aunties and uncles and cousins are invited over from Jamaica or Algeria or wherever, to join in the celebration. I can tell you that the couple's third baby will be on the way before the officials have provided the necessary visitor's visas for the wedding, if they ever do!
And if people find themselves discriminated against for long enough, like the Catholics in Northern Ireland, or the Tamils in Sri Lanka, or the Caribbeans in Brixton in London, you may expect explosions of anger from their young men, resulting in serious social unrest. And if governments had got any sense they would recognise this and do something about seeing that treatment for all was even-handed.
If you sit on the necks of people for long enough, you will pay the price, not only in missed opportunities, but in blood and in fire. I would go further on this point.
It is not enough either that all should be equal before the law. This equality of the law has to be actually applied, and there has to be actual equality of treatment for justice to be done. It is no good having a mention of the equality of all in your country's constitution if there is no legislation to back it up, or if that legislation is not enforced.
So I would emphasise that the failure to treat people equally not only creates misery, but in the long run it is dangerous.
Now let me turn to some positive suggestions for governments faced with immigration. (Evidently people's perception of immigration differs with geography and time. I pause to wonder what the Welsh in Britain thought of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, or the native Americans of the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese, or indeed the Aborigine Australians or the Maori New Zealanders of the arrival of the British. Did I hear someone say "send them all back"? You'd have a big job on if you tried!)
Nevertheless, coming back to my thesis of how migrants' economic performance could be improved in up-to-date Europe, to the benefit of all (and incidentally coming back to the title of this speech), I would make the point that the reason for my banging on about basic rights, democracy, free speech, and equal treatment is that observance of these is not only right and good and as it should be, but is politically, economically, and socially expedient as well.
If you want your millions-strong migrant community to work, to develop, to become more skilled, and to flower to their full potential, then you have to ensure they are not second-class citizens, but that they have a secure residence permit, they can rise by promotion through public and private life, that they can have their loved ones with them, that they can vote and be elected, be protected from discrimination and that they can have the right of free movement and establishment.
When men and women can see that life is going to be worth living, then they put their backs into it. They learn the language, join the parent-teacher association, work for promotion, apply themselves at school. That is, they act like normal human beings.
If you deny them these things, then you will have a resentful population, keeping their heads down, and generally functioning at half cock.
And of course one of the best and most comprehensive ways of ensuring full rights and equal treatment of migrants is the award of citizenship to stable long-term residents, either of the country of residence, or a dual citizenship of both country of origin and of residence.
It cannot be beyond the wit of man to sort out the bureaucratic bits and pieces this entails questions of liability to military service, land ownership etc. If there were goodwill, these things could be settled quite easily.
So my message on Europe, immigration, and economics is that the migrant community in Europe is already making a colossal contribution, that government legislation and education could help it make a better one, and all at no extra costs.
If there is one small sound-bite that I would like to get across to everyone in the audience, it is that "discrimination is bad for business". See to it that your whole population has equality of opportunity, and actually gets equal treatment, and you will get the best out of them.
And to quote Lord Jacobovits, one time chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth: "above all ... remember that we are all, each one of us, temporary residents on this planet, where we have to learn the art of living together in harmony before our visa expires, and we are called to migrate to another world".
Dr Rabindra Nath Tagore, the Nobel prize winner in literature once said: "The cry of the world is not only 'I have', but also 'I give'. In the first dawning light of creation, 'I have' was wedded to 'I give', if that bondage of union were to stop, everything would go to ruin."
At this international gathering let us therefore recommend we pick up the simple virtue of give and take, and apply it where it will improve the lifestyles of millions of people, both migrants and originals alike.
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